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A breakout Kickstarter success, the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset has the support not only of its many backers but of gaming industry greats like John Carmack. From homemade prototype to finished product, you'll find every step of its journey here as soon as it happens.
22 updates and 1473 comments below.
May 10 1:50a
Last month, Valve blockbuster Half-Life 2 got an unofficial port to the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset, but now the publisher is making things official in a new beta build. Polygon reports that Valve’s lead programmer behind the Oculus Rift port of Team Fortress 2, Joe Ludwig, posted the news on the Oculus developer forums. Ludwig notes that the Rift port of Half-Life 2 is "a bit more raw" than Team Fortress 2’s, pointing to UI issues with the HUD and zoom controls. If you have a...
Apr 26 6:53p
If you had any question whether the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset would lead to desirable new games, just ask any of the 1,500 people who attended FanFest 2013 in Iceland this year. There, EVE Online developer CCP showed off "EVR," a proof-of-concept game, which stuffs players into the virtual cockpits of a 360-degree turn-and-burn multiplayer space dogfighting simulation that appears to be set in the EVE Online universe. If reports from the conference are any indication, attendees who...
Apr 23 10:03p
In most video games where guns are involved, you're always aiming where you look. Now, with the help of the Oculus Rift virtual reality headgear, the Razer Hydra motion controller, and a couple of software mods, early adopters can move their head and arms independently in the immersive dystopian virtual reality of Valve's Half-Life 2.
Building on the Vireio Perception software driver — an independent project which specially formats images from a variety of popular PC games to fit the Rift...
Apr 22 6:06p
Joysticks could be a thing of the past: Virtuix will soon debut an omni-directional treadmill that can track gamers as they run, walk, and jump in every direction. The device — aptly dubbed the Omni — works alongside the Oculus Rift to form an encompassing virtual reality experience that fully replaces traditional movement controls. The company has shown off support for games including Crysis Warhead, Team Fortress 2, and Skyrim in a series of YouTube videos, but we're told that the...
10:15a
It's been hailed as the holy grail of virtual reality gaming, but Oculus Rift might soon be much more than that. Though they've yet to reach the hands of regular consumers, the headsets have already been evaluated by a preeminent expert in virtual reality therapy, or VRT, the practice of immersing patients in virtual realms to treat mental health problems. His verdict? "They're a game changer for the work that we do."
"I have no question that Oculus will revolutionize virtual reality for...
Apr 10 8:36a
Now that the Oculus Rift developers kits are finally shipping out, the teardown team at iFixit have gotten their hands on one and reduced it to its bare components. Despite the rather bulky size of the dev kit, it turns out there isn't much in there — as we've heard before, there's a single 7-inch LCD with a resolution of 1280 x 800. That works out to a 640 x 800 resolution for each eye, something we're hoping to see improve down the line to alleviate the blurriness we've experienced when...
Mar 29 2:22p
It's been a long road for the Oculus Rift — the virtual reality headset's Kickstarter began back in August, and was supposed to ship by the end of the year. However, things were delayed till March of 2013, but the company just announced it has made it in under the gun: Oculus Rift developer kits started shipping out to buyers earlier this week. These shipments should cover those who backed the project on Kickstarter as well as those who have purchased the headset directly from the Oculus...
Mar 26 12:59p
On a breezy, sunny day in San Francisco, I joined the team behind the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset at a private room in a restaurant a few blocks from the 2013 Game Developers Conference. They’re showing off Hawken, a game that hasn’t been seen on the Rift until now. I’m expecting the fireworks and punchy mech-combat shown off in Hawken trailers, along with a unique 3D twist from the Rift, but I got something else entirely: the gift of flight.
In less than a year since the...
Mar 19 12:00p
Mar 18 12:56p
As Oculus prepares to reveal more details about its virtual reality headset at 2013's Game Developers Conference, we're getting a bit of news beforehand — some good, some less so. In the former category, an anonymous tipster has told Road to VR that Valve will be adding Oculus Rift support to Team Fortress 2 next week. According to an allegedly leaked release, a software update sometime during GDC will enable an "experimental virtual reality mode," letting Oculus Rift development kit owners...
Mar 09 12:12p
Mar 08 6:03p
We've called the Oculus Rift head-mounted display "the future of virtual reality." But what does that really mean? Perhaps you'd like to hear the answer, live on the air, from a panel of gaming luminaries. At 4PM PT today, you can join renowned game developers Chris Roberts (Wing Commander), Cliff Bleszinski (Gears of War), Paul Bettner (Words with Friends), and the inventor of the Oculus Rift himself, for a live conversation streaming to you direct from the SXSW Interactive festival in...
Mar 05 1:45p
After a wave of early demonstrations, the first Oculus Rift developer kits are going out, and the question of how the Rift will be used for real-life games is becoming more important. Over at MTBS3D, a forum member unearthed an EA request for a student researcher to look into "VR technology in games," with specific mention of the Oculus Rift. Since then, site president Neil Schneider has gotten confirmation that while nothing is certain, EA is indeed weighing support for the Oculus Rift on...
Feb 19 11:59a
While the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset may have faced the all-too-common delays associated with many Kickstarter projects, it appears that everything is now full steam ahead. Earlier this month, Oculus VR posted a blog detailing the manufacturing process behind the "pilot round" of 40 developer kits that were scheduled to ship by the end of March, and now we're hearing that headsets are beginning to make their way to Kickstarter backers. As reported by Road to VR, famed developer...
Jan 31 8:16a
Our very own Joshua Topolsky appeared on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon last night, sharing a stage with Jude Law, Bad Religion, and Mike Tyson. There were no boxing matches to report, but Josh did bring a host of gadgets with him. Despite a rather moist hands-on, the time-shift camera mode on BlackBerry's Z10 received a round of applause from the audience who were impressed with the ability to pick the best shot. Razer's Edge tablet also made its way onto the stage, but the real star of the...
Jan 15 8:08p
We just gave the Oculus Rift, a virtual reality headset, our Best of CES award. Guess who else is experimenting with virtual reality? Valve Software. At the 2013 Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, California, the same renowned video game publisher that's hard at work on the Steambox will also share its thoughts on VR, after spending a full year prototyping ways to create virtual reality hardware and software. Valve will host two 25-minute lectures entitled "Why Virtual Reality is...
Jan 07 9:18p
We just met with the team behind the Oculus Rift, which started out as a DIY project that quickly morphed into into a Kickstarter success story. Oculus is here at CES showing off the dev kit it plans to ship out to backers in March, and got a chance to play with near-final hardware and software and see what founder Palmer Luckey hopes will be the next big sea change in gaming.
Nov 28 2:24p
When the the Oculus Rift VR gaming headset hit Kickstarter in August supporters were expecting their development kits to arrive before the end of this year, but the company has hit a snag — and the kits are now set to ship in March of 2013. A detailed post on the company's blog explains that Oculus has been trying to turn around more than 7,500 kits in response to the Kickstarter campaign, but that it has been forced to make some tweaks and changes as it moved to the manufacturing process....
Sep 26 6:31p
The Oculus Rift head-mounted display impressed us when we tested it out earlier this year, and now the developer kit for the headset is available for pre-order. Along with a Rift unit, developers will get access to the Oculus software development kit so that they can get started on building software for the new peripheral. It's clear Oculus understands that developer support is key to the product's success, with CEO Brendan Iribe telling us last month that "Oculus is actually more of a...
Aug 16 10:10a
Three months ago, the Oculus Rift was the pet project of a virtual reality enthusiast, literally held together with duct tape and hot glue. Yet as of today, it's raised over $1.6 million on Kickstarter due to thousands of similar virtual reality enthusiasts who want one too. Next year, though, you may not have to be a hobbyist or fund a grassroots project to experience what gaming luminaries like John Carmack are calling "the best VR demo probably the world has ever seen." That's because...
Aug 01 12:32p
The Oculus Rift virtual gaming prototype we tried out with John Carmack has come to Kickstarter. Oculus, led by VR enthusiast Palmer Luckey, is building what it hopes will be one of the first feasible head-mounted VR displays for gaming; it's asking for at least $250,000 to perfect and ship developer versions of the device by December. The headset comes with a wide field of view, low-latency head tracking, and a "high resolution display" that we're hoping is clearer than the one we saw back...
May 30 10:02a
Id Software has just announced Doom 3 BFG Edition, a "director's cut" of the 2004 first-person shooter with new missions as well as refined visuals and gameplay mechanics — including a flashlight on the vest so you can have light while you shoot. But buried in the press release, there's one line in particular that's worth paying attention to: the game will include new support for 3D TVs and head mounted displays. This shouldn't be surprising to those who follow John Carmack on Twitter —...
May 13 2:00p
Immerse yourself in fear: how Oculus Rift could change horror games
You kneel down on a wooden platform, several feet above a crowd of murmuring onlookers. To your right is a man, shouting, apparently getting the people riled up. As your gaze continues upward, you have just a moment to notice the blade resting above your neck before — thwack! — suddenly it comes down, and your head starts rolling.
Disunion is a guillotine simulator for the Oculus Rift. Like many of the demos available for the fledgling virtual reality headset, it's a bit rough: The crowd...
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